Autonomous vehicles and data collection talks coming August 78

Three no-cost discussion sessions will explore the growing importance of data capture, use and safe/reliable storage in vehicles and the autonomous transportation at the Flash Memory Summit August 7-8 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

During the free sessions; engineers, executives, urban planners, government officials and transportation researchers will explore the rapid growth that has been made this year in the volume of data that is being produced by vehicles, its use to safely move people and goods around cities and the importance of keeping the data safe, secure and available to authorized systems and applications.

Alan Messer, Innovation Shift, Greg Basich, Strategic Analysts, and Allan MacLennan, Padem Group, have all noted that the automotive and transportation industry is undergoing a major transition in the capture, storage, distribution and use of data in vehicles, between vehicles and with their surrounding environment.

“Safety and data security are the foundation of everything that is being done in today’s transportation industry,” Alan Messer noted. “While flawless vehicles are an impossible objective it is something everyone in the industry is focused on achieving.”

Basich noted that by 2050 the autonomous vehicles could be a $7 trillion industry and participants have a major incentive to eliminate human and vehicle error to keep everyone and everything moving safely and smoothly. “Data capture will be important,” he commented, “but it is more important that data is stored properly and securely. That will require a new level of security designed into and around high speed, high capacity flash storage.”

MacLennan pointed out that the major challenge for the storage and transportation industry will be to temper consumer expectations of zero road fatalities with the autonomous vehicles that are being introduced. “Incidents will happen,” he emphasized, “but unlike accidents with individuals the systems will learn from the event so safety will become better and the total ecosystem will improve including roads/streets, traffic signals, and the complete ecosystem.”

The open autonomous vehicle session discussions include:

Tuesday, Aug 7, 8:30-10:50 am - It has been estimated that 25,000MB of data will be generated per hour from all sources compared to the relatively low data usage for online activities like HD video streaming, audio, web streaming, turn-by-turn navigation. 100s of sensors and will be regularly collecting, processing, using and storing the data. Much of it will be kept in the vehicle (we believe) for use by the vehicle and more will be sent to the cloud for processing, feedback, exchange with other vehicles, sources.

Moderated by Greg Basich, Senior Analyst, Strategic Analysts; participants include - Anil Gupta, Winbond Electronics; Sarvesh Patel, IBM; Doug Mitchell, Cypress Semiconductor; and Crystal Chang, ATP Electronics.

Tuesday, Aug 7, 3:40-6:05 pm - Automated and Connected Vehicles - Storage Beyond the Trunk It feels like everyone wants to sell their products into the fully automated connected car. Find out where the sensor-based, video-oriented electronic systems are being designed in. Learn how the demand for better, faster, more reliable storage is growing. Hear how radar, sonar, lidar and elaborate/elegant in-car HD camera systems will be part of sophisticated infotainment systems.

Moderated by Allan MacLennan, CEO, Padem Group; participants include - Robert Thibadeau, DriveTrust; Mason Chen, Silicon Motion; Russell Rubin, Western Digital; and Sandeep Krishnegowda, Cypress Semiconductor.

Wednesday, Aug 8, 3:20-4:25 pm - Autonomous transportation isn’t just confined to the vehicle but a complete and comprehensive ecosystem of data capture, storage, distribution with different levels of speed, capacity, protection required at each point. This free session is a global end-to-end view of the data and storage challenge facing automotive, storage, government and ancillary service providers.

Moderated by Andy Marken, Marken Communications; participants include - Kun Zhou, California PATH, UC Berkeley; Eric Stoffer, IBM; Ivan Ivanov, Harman; Alan Messer, InnovationShift and Ivan Ivanov - Distinguished Engineer, CoC Systems, HARMAN Becker Automotive Systems GmbH.

The event’s free exhibit passes and automotive sessions are open to anyone who registers at this year’s FMS.